Publishing Monday: letter to a new children’s book writer (with apologies to Rilke)

I’m on vacation until April 22. In the meantime, I’ve set up some old favorites on this blog. It’s been a while since I’ve posted something about getting involved in children’s books. I hope you find this helpful!

(BTW, the gallery is closed this weekend, but will reopen Friday, April 24 at 6:30 pm for our montly Tarot Salon!)

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First things first: You are brave. You want to share your book with the world by having it published. It’s not enough for you to write and let your words linger in private. You want to make a child happy, to transform their understanding of the world — to inspire them. That is something to be applauded and encouraged.

You ask for how information on how to sell your book to a publisher. Well, I have to be honest: It’s not easy. I know that everyone has a story about someone they know who met an editor at a party and they got their book published like that. Sorry, exception to the rule. Ditto for J.K. Rowling.

But just because it’s hard to sell a book with a publisher doesn’t mean it’s not possible.

The not-so-good news: The publishing industry has changed dramatically since I started working in it well over a decade ago. Children’s books have gotten more commercial and celebrity driven — all those Harry Potters have made publishers hungry for the big book that will make a lot of money. It used to be that children’s book publishers would be satisfied if a book broke even at 5,000 to 10,000 copies. Not any more. Publishers could also rely on selling a good portion of books to schools and libraries, but budget cuts have changed this. Selling to schools and libraries gave publishers the freedom to acquire books that spoke to a niche demographic, or were clearly educational. Again, not anymore.

Children’s book publishing these days is all about how well it sells in the chains, such as Barnes and Nobles or Borders. It gets more complicated since chains often order large quantities and then return said large quantities if they don’t sell within a 90 day window, which really wrecks a publisher’s bottom line. Publishing is one of the few industries where the product can be returned; usually they can’t be repurposed (ie: sold elsewhere) because they’re paper products and usually don’t hold up for repeated sellings. So that means books get remaindered or, worse, destroyed and the publisher is out of pocket. And yup, there’s Amazon, but that’s a whole other complicated issue.

Suffice to say that publishers have become more cautious. They try to publish books that they’re sure (as much as they can be!) will sell a lot of copies. These days, they’ll even consult with a Barnes and Noble rep before deciding to acquire a book from an author.

So why am I presenting you with all this doom-and-gloom? Is it to discourage you? It may seem that way, but that’s really not my style. I simply want you to understand what you’re up against, so you’ll understand the following:

Your book has to be the best it can possibly be before you send it to an publisher or a literary agent.

Make this your mantra. Publishers don’t care if your family or your child’s class likes your book. They don’t care that you’ve always wanted to write a children’s book. They care that they can sell your book, that there’s a market for it, that it’s good.

What do I mean by good? Look at children’s books that move you. Try to analyze what makes them work, what elevates them into essential contributions to children’s literature. Writing a good picture book or children’s novel is an art onto itself. Spend some time at your local children’s bookstore or library to familiarize yourself with the classics. Talk to the people who work there, who are passionate about children’s books. Some people think that because a children’s book is shorter it’s easier to write than a book for adults — not true.

Workshop with other children’s book writers. Join the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (or SCBWI for short). They have programs, workshops and resources for those just getting into the biz to those who are already published authors. Just about everyone I know in the industry belonged to SCBWI at one time or another.

Educate yourself about the industry. One good website about children’s publishing is Harold Underdown’s site at http://www.underdown.org. He’s also written The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Publishing Children’s Books, an essential guide to children’s books which has been recently updated. (Don’t be discouraged by the title – you’re not an idiot!)

It’s great that you’re aware of similar books to your’s. This gives you the knowledge you need to shape your book differently — different focus, different structure, different pov. There are lots of books on your subject matter, so clearly there’s a market for them.

You mentioned hiring an illustrator for your picture book. Just so you know, you don’t need any illustrations to sell a picture book to a publisher. That’s the publisher’s job. But if you like, you can set up your manuscript as a 32 page book dummy on white paper; just indicate with words where you want the art to go. If you want to illustrate the book yourself, then just include one or two sample pieces of art.

In regards to setting up a book dummy, most picture books are 32 pages in length — sometimes 24 or 48, but that’s unusual. One classic book which describes how picture books are created is Uri Schulevitz’s Writing with Pictures: How to Write and Illustrate Children’s Books. It’s really written for illustrators, but writers of picture books can take away a lot here too.

Once you know that your book is (a) as good as it can be and (b) has a market, then you’re ready to send it out to a publisher! And that’s a whole other ball of wax.

There’s information on how to sell a book to a publisher here and here and here.

I hope you find this helpful! Good luck to you.

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Have a question about publishing, writing or illustrating books you’d like answered on Publishing 101? Send it to Kris: e-comment at artandwords dot com.

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Creativity Friday: Hidden in plain sight

I’m on vacation until April 22. In the meantime, I’ve set up some old favorites on this blog. This post seems appropriate for Creativity Friday—it reminds us of the importance of really paying attention to the world around us. Otherwise, who knows what inspiration we might miss?

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A friend forwarded me this article today from the Washington Post about Joshua Bell, one of the most brilliant violinists of our time. As an experiment — or PR stunt, you decide — Bell was asked to perform as a busker for 45 minutes during rush hour in L’Enfant Plaza, a major Washington DC Metro station.

The concept: To see if genius would be recognized if hidden in plain sight.

The disguise: None. Unless you count Bell wearing street clothes instead of concert formal a subterfuge.

The instrument: Bell’s beloved Gibson ex Huberman, which was crafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari. This violin is considered one of the greatest stringed instruments created by perhaps the greatest luthier who ever lived.

I’m sure you could guess what happened. Of the more than one thousand people who passed Bell as he performed, only several stopped to listen. And only one person recognized him. For his efforts, Bell received a measly $32.17 in hand outs — about $40 an hour.

So why didn’t anyone pay attention to Bell’s free concert? It wasn’t the Metro’s accoustics — Bell said they were particularly resonant. Nor was he slouching — he thought that he played particularly well on some especially difficult pieces, such as Bach’s Chaconne.

One theory that comes to my mind is that the number of people who stopped were in proportion to classical music lovers everywhere. Or that many of the commuters were plugged into their iPods, unable to hear anything outside of their chosen aural environment. More likely, it was that they were so used to quickly classifying (excuse the pun!) whatever stimuli reaches their senses down to its most basic info-byte to save time: I see a violinist, is he asking me for money? Will he slow me down? Am I running late? Will I get to work on time? This is a common survival mechanism for city dwellers (and I’m guilty of it myself). There’s just so much going on around you at all times that you filter things. Otherwise, you’d just be overwhelmed with Too Much Information and become strained and drained from the effort of processing it all.

Still, it’s so sad to consider that so many people missed such an experience of beauty. And it was there, right in front of them for the taking.

I was thinking about this strange-but-true story this afternoon, as my toddler daughter searched for easter eggs that we had hidden for her to find. Tom and I were careful to hide them in easily accessible places, so Thea would find them without becoming frustrated. Thea was so persistant as she hunted. Yet every so often, an egg would elude her, even though it was right there before her eyes. It was almost too obvious, too easy, even for a two year old with a limited attention span.

These sort of events, great and small, makes me wonder how often we stumble across gifts of beauty and inspiration, hidden in plain sight. It makes me wonder how many I’ve missed along the way, because I was too busy or too preoccupied with the soundtrack of my thoughts.

Sometimes all we can hope for are eyes to see, ears to hear, and a heart to recognize.

• Filed under be-mused, the world around me | One Response

The most beautiful house in the world?

I’m on vacation until April 22. In the meantime, I’ve set up some old favorites on this blog. Since I’m off traveling, it seemed appropriate to post something about one of my previous jaunts. This post is about the most beautiful house I’ve ever seen.

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Much as I love creating books, my main artistic inspiration these days derives from architecture. Surprised? Well, it’s not just the abstract idea of architecture that does it for me (though I do think of books as structures requiring balance and harmony, just like a building). To be precise, it’s Italian villas that are making me swoon — especially if they have interiors profusely decorated with tromp l’oeil frescoes.

It all began during my last visit to Venice in 2000. While my love for Venice is well documented by my illustrated novel, The Lover’s Path, this time I expanded my explorations to beyond that city. A day trip to the Brenta River valley introduced me to the villas of Andrea Palladio. It also brought me face-to-face with what many consider the most beautiful house in the world.

The Villa Foscari, better known as La Malcontenta (more on that below) was built by Palladio in 1558. While La Malcontenta belies its nickname to be a happy model of architectural perfection, what took my breath away was the whole of the interior: the furniture, the terrazzo floors and, most of all, the frescoes, which careen with color and light and life.

What’s the story behind La Malcontenta? One story claims that the villa received this name because the owner’s wife was locked up in the house after she failed to live up to her marital duty. A variant of this tale blames the wife’s unhappiness upon the humid summer weather of the Brenta River, which brought her discomfort and disease — an Italian Renaissance version of Washington’s Foggy Bottom.

Is La Malcontenta the most beautiful house in the world? It is for me. On my bulletin board in my studio, I have several color postcards of it that I glance at periodically during my work day. A friend joked that these photos represent my “happy place” — a metaphorical place that I can visit to center myself, to remind myself that perfect beauty does exist.

Now that you know about my not-so-secret obsession, it makes sense that my Cupid and Psyche painted violin from last year was a homage to the Villa Malcontenta. As I painted it, I was attempting to capture in a very small way the all-encompassing beauty I felt in that architectural structure.

I mean, isn’t that what art’s about? An attempt to channel our experiences into something tangible?

photos of Villa Foscani © Courtauld Institute of Art. All rights reserved.

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Publishing Monday: Literary agent for a day?

Want to see what it’s like to manage a slush pile for a day? Think you can spot the good queries from the bad? Nathan Bransford, a literary agent at Curtis Brown is putting this challenge up to visitors at his popular publishing blog.

Here’s how the “Be An Agent For A Day” contest works:

1. Fifty people sent in queries, which will be posted throughout today on his blog here. He plans to automate them to post sporadically throughout the day, so there will be bursts of queries and then dead periods.

2. This is where you, the reader, come in. If you decide to participate, you’ll need to read and respond to as many queries as you can.

3. You will have one week to respond to all 50 queries. You can draft your own rejection letter and manuscript request letter (personalized or non-personalized, your choice), which you will paste in the comments section of each query. You might even provide some specific feedback to try and help the author if you’re feeling extra conscientious.

You can read the rest of the rules here.

Wanna play? Head over here to read the first book proposal query—and get agenting!

• Filed under blogs we read, publishing | 4 Responses

Creativity Friday: King’s Rose giveaway winner—and a tarot reading giveaway

It’s the start of spring break over here—meaning that Thea is out of school, and I’m tying up loose ends on the book proposal before vacation next week. At this stage of the game, I need to get the proposal done and off to my literary agent, for creative as well as practical reasons. So today’s post is going to be a quickie-but-goodie. I can feel the Muses tapping their collective feet in impatience….

A few links and things before I announce the winner of The King’s Rose giveaway—and announce a new giveaway. (Yes, a new giveaway! This one is for a tarot reading with me. Details below.)

* While I’m away, I’ll be keeping to my regular posting schedule. Some old-but-favorite posts have been bankrolled to go live in my absence. I do hope you’ll check in!

* Over at Carlyn Beccia’s Raucous Royals blog, she’s posted the next installment of her “The Tudors: Hollywood versus Historical” series. Fun! So far, I’ve only watched the first episode of the new season, but am interested to see how they develop Jane Seymour’s character—especially after all of last season’s Anne Boleyn histrionics. To paraphrase what I wrote in Doomed Queens, Queen Jane does seems a rather bland Mrs. de Winter after Queen Anne’s vibrant-but-dead Rebecca.

* Wonders and Marvels has reposted my “Art of Dying” piece, which will tell you all you ever (or never) wanted to know about beheadings. Many thanks to a neuropsychologist friend, who helped me out with researching it. (She wants to remain unidentified out of shyness.)

* Author Catherine Delors has been posting a lovely series on her blog featuring transcendental art from Tres Riches Heures du Duc de Berry. Perfect for spring!

* If you haven’t checked it out yet, tarot artist Lisa Hunt has been recently posting about the creation of her highly anticipated Fairy Tale Tarot. She’s included photos of her studio and work underway. It’s a great peek inside her creative process, especially for anyone who’s interested in creating a tarot deck of their own.

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And now, for the winner of The King’s Rose, Alisa Libby’s new novel about doomed queen Catherine Howard:

Congratulations to Nicole C.!

Nicole, please e-mail your mailing address to kris [at] kriswaldherr dot com. And again, many thanks to Alisa for this generous giveaway and fabulous interview.

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Now for the new giveaway: Leave a comment below before midnight EST April 22, and you’ll be entered into a raffle to win a one question tarot reading with me via e-mail ($50 value).

Here are the rules: Only one comment per person. Winner will be chosen at random and announced Monday, April 27, on this blog.

And that’s that—for now. In the meantime, I wish you all a wonderful two weeks!

• Filed under be-mused, blogs we read, creativity, giveaways and raffles, new projects, queens, tarot and oracles | 2 Responses